Oscars Recap: ‘Spotlight’ Easy Choice for Best Picture; ‘Fury Road’, ‘Revenant’ Win Big

By Anthony Hernandez

Gorgeous sets, a few surprises, and some big wins for the best films of the year were marred by a terrible host. Chris Rock’s response to the #OscarSoWhite controversy surrounding this year’s ceremony was to spend the entire night taking jabs at the industry for their lack of nominations for black actors. While the point was made and yes – more opportunities in the industry for people of ALL races need to be offered – Chris Rock’s graceless and tasteless hijacking of the evening did nothing to advance the fight for people of other color. In fact, as the night moved on (at a very brisk pace, due to an updated and much appreciated layout), most of his “jokes” and sketches started to feel a bit tedious and borderline racist on their own. The accusations of racism in the film industry should not fall solely on the shoulders of an awards proceeding meant to honor the art – rather it is the studio executives, at the highest levels, who should be made accountable.

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But besides the tactless host this year, it was a night of a few surprises. Some of the good: Mark Rylance winning Best Supporting Actor over Sylvester Stallone, Ex Machina winning Best Visual Effects with the lowest budget of the five nominees, and Max Max: Fury Road winning both sound categories (bringing its grand total up to six awards) – to name a few. Some of the bad, however: ‘Til it Happens to You losing Best Original Song to The Writing on the Wall from Spectre, and The World of Tomorrow (one of the most important films of the year – regardless of length) losing Best Animated Short Film.

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In the end, the Academy went with the easy choice and gave Spotlight the award for Best Picture of the Year – a most deserving win. It’s the film nobody hated (a lot of people hated The Revenant) and it definitely benefited from the preferential ballot voting system. It also won Best Original Screenplay. Best Adapted Screenplay went to The Big Short – its only win of the evening.

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The Mexican born Alejandro González Iñárritu won his second Best Director award in a row, becoming only the third director in history to have won this award in two consecutive years. He spoke of equality in the film industry during his acceptance speech – speaking with far more grace than the show’s host. “There is a line in the film that [Glass says] to his mixed-race son, ‘They don’t listen to you, they just see the color of your skin,’”Iñárritu said. “So what a great opportunity to our generation to really liberate ourselves from all prejudice and, you know, this tribal thinking, and make sure for once and forever that the color of the skin become as irrelevant as the length of our hair.”

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The biggest news of the night comes in Leonardo DiCaprio’s win for Best Actor – a most deserved and long overdue award. He used this opportunity to stump for racial equality and for climate change, saying: “Climate change is real, and it’s happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world… and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.” The Revenant also won Best Cinematography, for a total of three awards.

Check out the full list of winners below:

Best motion picture of the year

• “Spotlight” Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Achievement in directing

• “The Revenant” Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant”

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Brie Larson in “Room”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Mark Rylance in “Bridge of Spies”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Alicia Vikander in “The Danish Girl”

Adapted screenplay

• “The Big Short” Screenplay by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay

Original screenplay

• “Spotlight” Written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy

Achievement in film editing

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Margaret Sixel

Achievement in cinematography

• “The Revenant” Emmanuel Lubezki

Best foreign language film of the year

• “Son of Saul” Hungary

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Inside Out” Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera

Best documentary feature

• “Amy” Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• “The Hateful Eight” Ennio Morricone

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Writing’s On The Wall” from “Spectre”
  Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Achievement in production design

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson

Achievement in costume design

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Jenny Beavan

Achievement in sound editing

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Mark Mangini and David White

Achievement in sound mixing

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo

Achievement in visual effects

• “Ex Machina” Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

• “Mad Max: Fury Road” Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin

Best animated short film

• “Bear Story” Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala

Best documentary short subject

• “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Best live action short film

• “Stutterer” Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage